Building safety

There must be many reasons for the building collapse in Delhi. Construction of the majority of the small buildings is done without the consultation of civil engineers who know, among others, the intricacies of the load bearing capacity of the walls, quality of concrete and steel rods and the requirements of foundation integrity which are critical aspects. The owners of the building go by the advice of the masons. The undesirability of this practice gets amplified when buildings are multi-storied or additional floors are added; so are buildings with basements which may be vulnerable during the rainy season. In the instant case, it is shocking to read that the building collapsed when repairs were carried out in the basement. In the recent past, Delhi experienced heavy unseasonal rains which may be one reason that had probably added to the fragility of the building. (Front page, September 8).

V. Lakshmanan,

Tirupur, Tamil Nadu

Revised map

The move to promote equal-area map projections will ensure cartographic fairness. However, handling politically contested regions requires strict diplomatic neutrality. Depicting contested zones with neutral line indicators and explanatory notes will ensure that global mapping efforts do not become a catalyst for further geopolitical tensions.

Harrell Roji,

Bengaluru

Assembly speech

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay’s speech in the Assembly was highly contentious. He offered no answers to the valid questions raised by the Opposition about the dire law-and-order situation prevailing in the State. The actor in Mr. Vijay got the better of him. The Chief Minister delivered a speech worthy of a silver-screen hero and appeared more like an “angry young man” in a film, venting his “righteous indignation”, than a Chief Minister addressing the problems faced by the people.

His body language may have enthused his die-hard fans, but it did not go down well with ordinary people. He did not use the floor of the Assembly to explain the steps his government intended to take to improve the law-and-order situation. Instead, he raked up the Sarkaria Commission report and the arrest and incarceration of M.K. Stalin under MISA during the Emergency. His gesture of punching the jaw was an unmistakable allusion to the brutal attack on M.K. Stalin during the Emergency.

The Enforcement Directorate must be pleased that the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister relied on its findings on the State-run TASMAC to portray the DMK government as corrupt. Mr. Vijay was not magnanimous enough to acknowledge M. Karunanidhi’s immense contribution to shaping Tamil Nadu and upholding its culture, language and identity for over seven decades.

Mr. Vijay must be a fatalist to say that a few “individual crimes” here and there do not reflect the deteriorating law-and-order situation in the State. He cannot “normalise” crime or ask people to come to terms with a rise in crime. Mr. Vijay has been in power for 118 days, but the promised new dawn in governance remains elusive.

G. David Milton,

Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu

The reply of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to the demands concerning the Police and Fire Services threw more heat than light. His fiery speech seemed to spew fire and brimstone; his body language was hostile and his delivery aggressive.

The Speaker’s strange volte-face in not permitting the DMK to respond to the charges levelled against it left the party with no choice but to walk out. There is indeed sufficient substance in the grievance of the Leader of the Opposition that only one of the 15 questions raised by him was answered by the Chief Minister.

The 50-year-old Sarkaria Commission was dug up, and excerpts were quoted to highlight the “scientific corruption” of the then ruling party. The ED report was cited as the only credible document on which action has been initiated.

The DMK legislators stormed into the Well, leading to some anxious moments and apprehensions of violent scenes on the floor of the House. The Chief Minister’s reply looked more like an election speech than an informed response to the issues raised in the Assembly.

The speech was disappointing, and there is a long way to go before the TVK learns the craft of conducting Assembly proceedings in an amiable and constructive manner.

S. V. Venkatakrishnan,

San Jose, California, U.S.